


Lost and Found

by type_here



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-04
Updated: 2015-11-15
Packaged: 2018-04-29 20:09:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5140946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/type_here/pseuds/type_here
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A reflection on what is lost, a reflection on what is found.  </p><p>In the vein of "Am I Alone Now?" Post episode 26, so beware spoilers.  Most likely rambly.  Unbetaed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Ohana

Aaaaaugh, just wish everything would stop being painful right now. And I've been strapped down too for the past two days here, in the good doctor's lab, just... Eh. Just great.

Guys, it just so happens that your friend here, and by friend I mean me, is only MOSTLY dead! There's totally a big difference between mostly dead and all dead. Mostly dead is slightly alive. With all dead, well, with all dead there's usually only one thing you can do.

And apparently that didn't happen, so I guess that's great. Although...

Sigh...

Hera? Are you there?

You're probably picking up on something right? Like picking up on my vital signs like that time where I almost drowned? Because you missed me?

Heeeraaaa?

Sigh...

Eh. Of course... HE turned off the comms again. Might as well have some time for those experiments after that flare up. I guess it leaves me plenty of time to think though, right? 

Right.

Riiiight...

...

It's funny, really, when you think about it though. Never thought I had that much to lose. Never though I would ever had someone giving a damn so much about little ol' me. Let alone more than one person, actually.

I could hear them. Between the coughs and the haze of really REALLY ridiculously painful pain I was having, I could hear them.

I could hear them. They.. eh. I can't believe it but...

Lovelace was about to leave. She was about to blow this place up to smithereens. It was about to blow up as if it was set in a Michael Bay movie, or some post apocalyptic capitol city battleground. 

And then, I heard them protecting me. It could have gone so wrong. She could have left us there to die instead of just me. I still don't understand why she didn't.

Eh eh...

Like I could understand Hilbert not wanting to lose his experiment, I guess. Even though, he totally could have found another meatbag for Decima if he really wanted to. Just use the notes and restart and then continue where you left off. Easy, peasy right? Especially for a guy like him, like there's nothing to it.

And Minkowski... I guess she didn't want to lose the Han to her Luke in some messed up carbonite induced hell illness but...

Oh great. I can't brush those off now. My vision is all blurry. Great, just great. That crap is just coming out of nowhere. I guess the good doctor got me hopped up on pretty good stuff if I just react like that , right? Right.

But I guess I should thank her too. While Lovelace saved my life with her blood, she did it with her voice. For the moment I was still conscious, she gave me focus. I honestly don't know if...

If it hadn't been for her, I don't even think... I...

Eh, honestly I would rather not think about that too much. I would rather think about how I'm one hell of a lucky bastard, you know? I was always the no good son, the drifter who will amount to nothing.

Eh...

It's funny really...

I almost had to lose my life at least three times now, probably more. You stop counting after a while. I had to lose my family back home, in a way. I had to hit rock bottom and be scrapped out of the hell hole I dug for myself kicking and screaming.

I... It kind of hurts to say because it brings so many stupidly painful memories back but...

I mean, I would like to take a break from the physical pain already so imagine heaping mental one on top of that but...

Eh...

I had to almost lose everything to find this. I found it all on my own. It's little, and broken, God knows it is, but still good. Yeah - still good, to paraphrase another experiment.

And it's more of a family than I ever had back on Earth.

It's funny how those things go, right?


	2. Strenght

Forward, forward, back. 

Loss; again and again.

I can hear the echoes of the others every times I hear him. The ghosts are always there to haunt me. I can't escape, can I?

I hear him. He's already so far gone. I was the one holding Lambert like this, telling him that everything would be fine. Nothing is ever fine.

And yet Officer Eiffel tries. He tries so hard between the coughs. he tries to stay awake. He tries to fight off the pain. he tries to smile, if only for a fleeting moment.

I see it clear as day, clear as the light of that wretched star. I see Lambert and Hui, I see their pain. I see his pain. There's absolutely nothing I can do and it scares me.

Selberg scares me. He could do anything to that man on the table and nobody would stop him.

I should focus, I should go.

They're giving me a way out.

I. have. a. mission.

Let this place explode. It wouldn't be a big loss. They wou...

Focus.

Mission.

Look ahead, don't look back.

Don't blink, don't die. 

I walk through those corridors, the same yet different with age.

Look ahead, don't look back.

Then you can get revenge. For them before, for him now.

Then if you're a big girl enough, if you're still alive, you can mourn their loss once everything is said and done.

Everything goes smoothly, the engine start nothing stales.

It's great. It's good. 

Hera is chewing me out right now and maybe I deserve, maybe not. 

She doesn't know where I'm coming from.

Deep breath...

Deep breath.

Focus. I need to focus.

I need to stop being still with just my hand on the handle and buttons that would launch this shuttle.

Maybe I should forget about all of them if they want so bad to stick together. Selberg will kill them and it's going to be the end of it.

I don't have to look back at any of this. Just keep going forward, just go away from this place.

It's hard. So hard. So different and still the same. It doesn't make anything any less harder. I should have been made of stone for all I care, for all this will do good to me. I should have done something sooner. I hate myself for not doing something sooner, when my crew was still whole, when I figured out that everything was wrong.

I...

Focus. 

Your engine is running and you made it out there before. You can walk out of this mess and leave them alone, just like Rhe... HERA wanted. 

Just like Hera wanted.

Maybe they'll figure their own way out.

I can't do this. I'm trying. I've tried before and I see too much of them in him.

Hui, Lambert, Fisher, Fourier. You were all my strength and I lost you. 

Then I found them.

Can they be my strength now? Can anyone be my strength ever again? Would you forgive me if I leave them behind? Would you forgive me if I stay? It feels too much like replacing all of you. It feels too much like looking back and I need to keep on pushing forward.

Focus.

Focus...

Hera is making sure I can hear them even though she knows I still plan to leave. I hear her voice echo thinly through the comm system as she announces my departure. She'll do that last ditch effort to stop me and protect him, won't she?

I hear him cough and gasp.  
I hear Lambert cough and gasp.

Always the comm officer first apparently...

I hear Hui...

When those ghosts will stop haunting me? 

Focus, go through the startup sequence.

Focus, don't listen to Hera berating you again.

It's hard, so hard.

"IT'S VERY FREAKING HARD!"

I lost all my strength, well before I came back here. I lost it when I lost you all.

I won't let them lose theirs. I won't let you lose yours.

I won't let you lose yours because you are their strength. You better fight through it all and prove me I did the right thing,

Then maybe I won't have ghosts haunting me again.

"To hell with all of this."

I step out of my chair, walk back toward the lab.

Maybe I won't have ghosts haunting me again.


	3. Humanity

It was a matter of time really. You were going to leave me all alone at one point or another. There was absolutely no way you were staying around. Not an infinitesimal chance, not the slightest fraction of a percent. No for me, not for and AI, not for a mean to an end, right?

I just never thought it would be this SOON. I thought it would be all of you, all at once. I just never thought it would take you...

It..

It...

*kladfklbzzt*

Oh, oow. I hate so much when my circuitry overloads like that.

I...

I just never thought you'd be the first to go. I thought you would go back to Earth. I thought you would get to enjoy everything you keep talking to me about again. Sure, your actual chances to go back were always less than fifteen percents. It was... it is better than this, however.

I just never thought I'd get to see my best friend die. Sometimes, I forget that, if I don,t get shut down or broken, I can pretty much last forever.

I remember your first day. I guess being an AI like that do help in remembering a lot of things. You were whispering about me. You were finding the whole idea of an omniscient AI with way too much control over the space station way too weird. You didn't know how to address me. It was kind of cute. Well... Cute as much as it was annoying really.

Commander Minkowski was no better in the beginning though. She still mostly call to me only for the business side of things. You'd probably chuckle at the tone of voice I got right now, you'd say it sounds like I'm pouting.

...

...

I don't want to lose you.

You were the first to treat me like a human being after those first few days. Amid the calculations, the power that raced through me like blood does in your veins, the myriads of colors and sounds outside you never hope to perceive and everything, there was this tiny voice.

This tiny and oh so human voice.

And it was yours.

It was yours and it was calling me out just to know how I was. It was so novel back then, I guess from time to time it still is, in a way. When there's too much calculations going through my processors, when there's too much noise, you're always there to ask me if I'm okay.

You're always asking if I can hear you. Yes, I can hear you. Yes, I’m there. I’m always there. But it just goes to show how much you really care.

I'm always there and one day soon, you won't be. Rights now is too soon and it scares me. Miscalculations scares me. Accidents on my part that might cost you your life scares me. But those would my fault alone.

I still have to focus on the rest of the station, but right now, all that really matters is that one set of monitors. Your vital signs and biological readings are slowly, ever so slowly, going down. Hilbert and Commander Minkowski are trying their best to save your ridiculously fragile and tiny shell of a body and all I can do is watch and listen.

Well, no. It's not true that it's all I can do. I just can go yell at... Lovelace... for doing nothing. I can keep this place from falling apart at least for as long as you are in trouble. You're always in trouble though. You're all so fragile.

I always been wondering... I’ll miss you after you go away forever, Doug. Sometimes I don't think I will miss you, but there were some days when I did wonder.

I doubted it.

Now I realize that.... Eh eh... I... I just will. If it's today or three years from now, unless I purge all the memories from my system, I will miss you.

Will you miss me?


	4. Truths

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (( Wow writing Hilbert ended up being more of a challenge to me than expected... Welp, there goes nothing XD ))

There is no sentiments to be had in science. Only a solution and the focus needed to reach that solution. You will get through so many hypothesis before reaching that solution. You have statistically more chance to reach it than for Earth to be hit by a meteor big enough to destroy all human life on it. Sometimes it will take lifetimes to reach a goal, sometimes days if you are lucky.

You hold so much potential within you, potential for me to reach my goal. You have the potential to become much greater than the sums of anyone's parts. I told you as much.

But you are not doing this for the sake of the bigger picture, are you?

You are doing this all the same for a single person you don't even know. You do it for a person I barely mentioned and you know nothing about.

You would do a lot of things for the sake of sentiments. Augh, a lot of... degrading things... as you mentioned yourself once. Yes I heard that log you sent back to Earth for the kids. Someone had to censor the most unsavory bits after all and Commander Minkowski was sadly busy.

This is your truth, an open book ready to be read by anyone, expendable, ready to be broken. That is what they saw in you, that is why you are here.

I look at you coughing. You don't even know half the truth and still you seem to trust me so blindly. Even though you are fully aware that, given the chance, I could kill you.

Ah.

Goddard and I are already killing you. For the sake of science.

There's no sentiments to be had in science.

There's no sentiments to be had toward anybody on this crew.

There was other before you and there will be more after you. Then why? Why am I giving you a way out?

Even the AI has sentiments now. Computational power had become so great as to create neural network that much close to the human brain. It is fascinating really. Remove their personality matrix hardware and they become just machines spouting warnings because it is their programming.  


We cannot do such a thing with humans, at least not yet.

Sentiments... They are always getting in the way. Truth is, they are also what brought me on this path. So many truths behind the walls and webs of lies.  


They, back on Earth, back at Goddard Futuristic, would not care about my truths all the same, even though I bring them what they want on a silver platter. The rest of this crew would not care about my truth because they care too much about you.

There is no sentiments to be had in science. There is no truth either beside what we can see. 

Knowing that you are about to die anyways, I could tell you all of my truths, but then...

Would you commit them to memory as they are? Record my side of the story in those logs of yours without twisting the truth? Objective like all the facts we know about the world? Or would everything be tainted by the colors of your sentiment.

Lovelace let her sentiments taint her judgement. I cannot blame her to follow such a path however.

I need to bury mine. I need to hide the rest of those truths you do not know yet. It does not matter if you twist all the truths and lies together. Somebody will be smart enough to see it for what it is at some point.

If f my crime can help improve the world we all must live in, then so be it. I'll walk that line between grey truths and lies. I will let you, I will let the whole world call this a crime. The path might never straight and narrow and but I will take this winding road ahead of me.

For your sake, as much as anything else.


	5. Hope

Are you still waiting for me back on Earth? I wouldn't blame you if you decided to see another girl while your wife plays Lost in Space, stuck eight light years away. 

Augh… that quirk of Eiffel is really getting to me. He really got to all of us, in a way. The cheeky bastard.

It been so long since I last talked to you. 

I need to hear you. I need to hold you.

I need to make sure that you are still waiting for me because otherwise I can't do this. He is fading too fast and there's nothing I can do about it. One of my crew is dying and all I can do is hope for the best.

Are you even getting those message I keep sending you once in a while? I doubt even that. 

I...

I need a deep breath. Maybe I need water also, maybe Hilbert is right and I look way too pale.. 

Above all though, I need to keep calm. I am the commanding officer of this ship, I will see things through.

I will...

I have to.

Will you... Will you forgive me if I can't bring them back safely to Earth? I know I won't be able to forgive myself. We were lied to. I... It means I lied to you to... By accident sure, but... I still lied to you 

Hilbert, of everyone here aboard this ship, is...

Okay, okay okay. No time for this. No time to panic. We both need to calm down and see what we can do.

I need to be strong for them.

I need you to be strong for me.

Hilbert is rattling bottles of synthetic blood and looking more and more frantic. It can't be good it, can't be good at all.  
I need you to be strong for me.

"Can you use my blood?" 

He can't. He can't and the other option takes too long and I'm not... I can't...

"No no! After all the crap we... We still have time! Do something!" 

One of the machine hooked to Eiffel beeps angrily at the both of us and Lovelace was right: I'm afraid to fail them. I'm afraid to fail Eiffel and by failing him, to fail everyone. I'm not strong enough for this, I don't think anybody would be strong enough. 

I take a step back.

Hilbert turns the switch of the machine off only to leave the softer beep of the heart monitor going.  
I can't handle it going slower and slower. I just wished you were here to hold me or I wish I could trade place and not have Eiffel go through all this. I barely hear Hilbert through the shock.

I need to stay stoic for their sake. I can break down later. I CAN break down later!

I can call you later. I can make my way back to you.

No.

I can't.

Not without them and our chance to get away got...

The door clanks loud enough to startle me out of my line of thoughts.

I just hope...

They don't even notice me glancing warily between them.

“You... You were leaving... You were gone...”

And there's nothing else I can say or do. Once again I step back unable to do anything but hope.

Hope that Eiffel will be okay.

Hope that Lovelace will not be just making this whole thing explode.

Hope to be able to show the strength that I don't have.

Hope that you're still waiting for me and that I'll be able to make it back to you alive.


End file.
